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As usual, all my promises of exciting progress and regular updates have fallen flat on their face. However, I haven’t been totally unproductive – since the last update, I’ve come on leaps and bounds with the Versailles dress, finished Simplicity 1715 (I LOVE IT), made a pair of 1770s stays and made a dress in homage to Ginger Rogers using Sense and Sensibility’s Swing Dress pattern.

I’ve been doing things!!

I plan on doing a proper post on each of these projects over the next few weeks, but until then, here’s a little break-down of each one.

The Versailles Dress

I am in love with everything about this dress. It’s 17th century, gorgeous and orange. What more could I possibly ask for?

I’m SO close to being finished – all I need to do is hem the skirt. To keep you going until my real post, here is a photo of here we’re at so far:

Simplicity 1715

So at first, I wasn’t sold on this dress. I don’t really know how I feel about the weight of material they use in the photo…it looks kind of foam-y.

But then I came across this tiny elephant print fabric in John Lewis (As seen here). And a plan began to form.

When I actually looked at the dress pattern, I realised that the combination of dropped waist and slightly full skirt could be the solution to my lack of waist. And my guess worked out a dream!

1770s Stays

I was bored about a month ago, and flicking through my Janet Arnold books, cooing at all the lovely 18th century polonaise dresses. In my head, I thought ‘I could make a muslin and see what happens’…images of dress success were flying high.

I’m also a huge fan of Jennie Chancey’s Sense and Sensibility pattern line, and have been looking for an excuse to buy the Swing Dress for a long time now. Despite ‘Carefree’ being made in the late 1930s and the pattern based in the 40s, the sentiment is the same, and the heat motif carries over well. Here’s a sneaky peak to keep you going until the real photos appear:

So there you have it. That’s my sewing round up from the last 4 months. Not as much as I’d have liked to get done, and I’ve still got a couple of things on the ‘unfinished’ pile, but I’m getting there.

Hopefully I’ll manage to persuade myself to produce another post before Christmas. It would be an achievement indeed!